


when the moon is out

by MiniNephthys



Category: Fate/EXTRA
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4342697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinji is a person all his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the moon is out

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for CCC and wow did I write something Type-Moon after months and months?

Fate’s ways are not always kind, nor always painful. Like almost everything, they’re somewhere in between, and half the time Archer doesn’t know whether he should be grateful or not to meet someone who reminds him of his life.

Seeing Matou Shinji again is… not the easiest thing about the first round of the Holy Grail War. Archer is well aware that this isn’t the same one he knew when he was alive, but he resembles his friend so closely that it’s only circumstances that remind him that they’re separate people. More to the point, this Shinji is someone he has to put an end to.

It would be less difficult if Shinji realized what he’d gotten into.

But his Master is young and inexperienced and they’re not particularly close yet, so he keeps his thoughts on the matter to himself. Even when this Shinji mentions his real age as his body fades into data, it’s far too late to do anything about it.

That’s not the last time he sees Shinji. The Far Side of the moon is a strange place with more important things to focus on than different versions of old friends, but it gives the opportunity to see this Shinji as more than a reflection of a different person or an enemy to be defeated. Every time Archer thinks he has him down, things like Shinji’s surprising graciousness at being beaten in chess startle him into remembering: Shinji is a person all his own.

(That said, he still needs reminding sometimes. When he mentions Shinji being popular with girls, Hakuno gives him a look and says, “He’s eight.”

Archer coughs into his hand. “He’s that type, I mean.”)

In an ideal world Archer would have the time to get to know this Shinji and let him have his own legacy, one not conflated with his memories of another. No one deserves to live in the shadow of another, not even in one person’s mind.

That’s just an idle thought. Archer has never lived in an ideal world, and the Far Side of the moon is no different.

There are enemies to be fought and a normal war to try and return to, and Shinji is already dead. He can’t leave the Far Side, nor would he want to. After all, if nothing else, Shinji can be counted on to put basic self-preservation ahead of everything else.

...And then Shinji surprises him again, one last time.

Archer can’t quite look at Shinji while he’s dying. He’s Hakuno’s friend, not his; the two of them deserve their moment together, when it’s her Shinji chose to die for, simply because she cried for him.

Archer himself is only a temporary existence in the Moon Cell. When this war is properly finished, he will forget everything he learned here, Near Side and Far Side. There’s no way around that.

But until that moment when he forgets everything, he’ll remember this Matou Shinji, and he won’t confuse him with anyone else.


End file.
